Curriculum - Katie McNeil: EdTech Content Marketing

After five years of education reporting experience, I earned a master's in educational technology from Teachers College, Columbia University with a New York State teaching certification as a K-12 Technology Specialist.

As part of my certification, I worked as a student teacher at two New York City independent schools spending 300 hours teaching courses in digital literacy, programming, robotics, and technology ethics.

Combining my writing skills with my education experience, I have produced curriculum for various tech companies, as featured below.

21st March 2019

Microsoft Hacking STEM: Making party lights to understand electrical circuits and switches

I collaborated with teachers to provide both substantive and copy editing of this middle school STEM lesson plan. This three-day activity introduces students to electrical circuits and how to use a circuit to create a light switch. Students construct electrical circuits consisting of four fundamental components—power source, load, conductor, and switch. With these circuits, students create party lights that are manually controlled or set to music they choose.

Microsoft Hacking STEM • 21st March 2019

Microsoft Hacking STEM: Building models to understand and mitigate brain injury

I collaborated with teachers to provide both substantive and copy editing of this middle school STEM lesson plan.

This lesson sparks students’ curiosity about the brain and helps them understand and mitigate brain injury. Students construct a model of the human brain, equip it with impact sensors, and use data to develop and test designs for protective headgear.

31st October 2022

Build machines that emulate humans

Students build robotic models from cardboard and straws to understand the anatomy and biomechanics of the human hand. Then, they conduct trials visualizing data in Excel to generate new ideas for improving its performance.

Lucid Software • 30th June 2016

Lucidchart Lesson Plan: Character Profiling

Students will explore how people express themselves online and offline and analyze the difference between person and persona

Lucid Software • 30th June 2016

Lucidchart Lesson Plan: Time Travel Agent

In this lesson, students will take on the role of ancient travel agents promoting an ancient civilization of their choice. Using Lucidpress, students will work in groups to design brochures to entice travelers to visit their civilization.

Lucid Software • 30th June 2016

Lucidchart Lesson Plan: Revolutionary Reporter

In this lesson, students will take on the role of reporter during the onset of the American Revolution. Using Lucidpress, student reporters will write a newsletter from 1775 detailing the causes of the revolution and other major events of the time.

Lucid Software • 30th May 2016

Lucidchart Lesson Plan: Judge a book by its cover

As an alternative to the ubiquitous book report, this lesson challenges students to recreate a cover for a recent book they have read

Teachers College, Columbia University • 2nd May 2014

Media Literacy Curriculum

As a grad student, I designed this middle school curriculum exploring online and offline identities, the business behind the web and using social media for social good. The goal of this curriculum is to transform students’ passive consumption of media to the active construction of their online identities and empowerment expressed through social activism.